Poet-lore
Vol. IV.
No.11.
wilt thou not haply ſaie
Truth needs no collour with his collour fixt,
Beautie no penſell, beauties truth to lay:
But beſt is beſt, if neuer intermixt
Becauſe he needs no praiſe, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuſe not ſilence ſo, for’t lies in thee,
To make him much out-liue a gilded tombe:
And to be praiſed of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office
IS CHAUCER IRRELIGIOUS?
HE thought of Chaucer as religious, in the accepted sense of the term, is a pleasing absurdity. Mr. Lounsbury’s recent monograph, however, has raised a query about the relation of Chaucer to the religion of his time. It is the work of a profound student. No stone has been left unturned to prove Chaucer irreligious. For my own part, although I agree with Mr. Lounsbury in most particulars, I should like to lay the stress a little differently. I shall try to restate the whole question more briefly, from a less scholarly standpoint, to prove Chaucer, in a special sense, religious. This is begging the question. Mr. Lounsbury has declared Chaucer pre-eminently a man of letters and an artist in his profession, and he has explained the poet’s philosophy; but in support of Chaucer’s twofold ability as critic and as artist, I would dwell even more forcibly, if possible, upon a twofold influence of historic significance; namely, contemporary art in Italy, and the development of rationalism in religion.
Readers of Chaucer are familiar with the religious figures of Monk, Friar, Pardoner, and Summoner of the ‘Canterbury Tales,’
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